


illusions of false grandeur

by ruthlesslistener



Category: 2P Hetalia - Fandom, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, character introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:49:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8152867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthlesslistener/pseuds/ruthlesslistener
Summary: They called you a monster, and maybe they were right; the blood splattered across your cheek is fresh, the taste copper-sweet in your mouth, the body of your victim sprawled boneless at your feet. And maybe you admit it; maybe sometimes you hold your blades up to the light of the moon and stare at them, feeling that sick darkness churn in your heart and stomach as they gleam. Maybe you’re the demon they say you are, maybe they made you this way, maybe you should slide your beautiful silver knives across their bellies as they sleep, slitting them open for them to rot in their beds.





	

They called you a monster, and maybe they were right; the blood splattered across your cheek is fresh, the taste copper-sweet in your mouth, the body of your victim sprawled boneless at your feet. And maybe you admit it; maybe sometimes you hold your blades up to the light of the moon and stare at them, feeling that sick darkness churn in your heart and stomach as they gleam. Maybe you’re the demon they say you are, maybe they made you this way, maybe you should slide your beautiful silver knives across their bellies as they sleep, slitting them open for them to rot in their beds.

Maybe you like this darkness; maybe you like the fire in your blood as you watch them bleed out. There’s something dark and twisted in that heart incapable of love; you were not born like this, you were made. And the scars twisting your body are testimony to that, living brands telling stories of pain and trauma and death. The person you once were died long ago-the boy with the fire in his heart and the shivering shoulders, the boy with the hiccupping laugh, the boy who used to draw pretty pictures in the mud of the river Tiber with his brother. You were slit open and torn to pieces and built back up again, and you have been left broken, though you claim _(desperately lying to yourself, of course you are, that’s the only way you’ve survived this long anyways)_ that you are whole.

 Who are you, anyways? You’re no more than a reflection of reflection, a shattered mirror reflecting the wrongs of others, missing parts, reflecting false images, false shadows, false wants and goals and ideals, a dangerous, broken mess of a man.

_(Are you? Are you human? Is there humanity in those eyes, so deadly, so twisted, so wrong?)_

_(Does it matter? Does it matter anymore? You are a king, yes, but a king who wears a circlet of bones, a crown that is worth nothing outside the grasping reach of your shadowed, haunted kingdom.)_

And you know, instinctively maybe, that the sick fever raging you from dawn until dusk will someday lead to your downfall. You rise with the dying of the sun and paint a pretty red trail with those pretty silver knives against the black of the night, sating your starving ego, feeding the monster within, raging your hurt and pain blindly against those you thought defied you. You burn with the hellfire, hollowed by it, a mere husk, and you rage against the brimming light as it comes, reflexes and scars of centuries past turning away from possible danger, no matter what it might do to save you. You rage, and take, and laugh at the stars and the fear and hatred in the eyes of others, but somewhere inside of you is screaming right back with them, is a high, keening cry swallowed by the hollowness you created inside you to save yourself. You slip, and you fall, and you jump back up, infuriated by failure, but when you get cut, you get cut on the shattered mirror- shards of your own crippling faults. Who you are is an illusion, a reflection; you cough, feeling the darkness of your own fragile existence bubble up in your throat like blood. The wail of pain that you suppressed so long ago becomes a desperate, sharp whine, whispering fears and weakness and failure into your already poisoned mind.

_(You’re not enough. You’re never good enough. You’ve climbed to the top of your world, bleeding, crowing victory to the battered sharks sullenly circling the waters around you, but you are still worthless. You will forever be lowborn, second choice, second-best, your life’s work, your soul’s worth always below the lowest being of the upper class, a puppet to be toyed with by the people you are supposed to control at their leisure alone. And you, despite the sharpness of your smile, the careful illusion of perfection, is still, at your heart, nothing more than a broken-down animatronic of the person you once were.)_

But you square your shoulders. You steady your feet, blink back the exhaustion built from murder and paranoia, and walk with the intensity and confidence of a rising god. The rough fabric of your uniform scrapes against rivulets of silvered flesh, masking the cracks in your mask, and you, a monster built from the darkness of others, continues. Your wolven smile fixes into place, sliding on like the cracked leather gloves you used when you took another life last night, hiding your mirrors; hiding your faults.

You rise with the dying of the sun, and you follow it, a lonely soldier marching, marching on alone.   

**Author's Note:**

> This was an old drabble that I finally polished up and finished. I quite like examining the faults in Luciano's character, as you can see.


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